Political winds shift, architectural styles change, and technological innovations influence waves of demolition and reconstruction in this analysis of Chang'an Avenue's metamorphosis. During collective design processes, architects, urban planners, and politicians argue about form, function, and theory, and about Chinese vs. Western and traditional vs. modern style. Every decision is fraught with political significance, from the 1950s debate over whether Tiananmen Square should be open or partially closed; to the 1970s discussion of the proper location, scale, and design of the Mao Memorial/Mausoleum; to the more recent controversy over whether the egg-shaped National Theater, designed by the French architect Paul Andreu, is an affront to Chinese national pride.
Shuishan Yu is associate professor of art history at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
"There is no comparable book in a Western language, and Chang'an Avenue goes farther in its vision than any comparable book in Chinese. Focusing on China's most important locus, Tian'anmen and the Forbidden City behind it, and modern China's most important street, Chang'an Avenue, it explains how architecture was integral to China's attempt to define a socialist, sometimes totalitarian, and ultimately people's republican state from the rapidly changing world of the 1950s through the Beijing Olympics." -Nancy Steinhardt, author of Chinese Imperial City Planning